Chapter 3: The Little Girl Poem: Rain on the Roof

Answer: Kezia stitched three sides of the pin-cushion. She was confused about what to fill the cushion with. Grandmother was not around. So, Kezia went to her parents’ room to ask her mother for some scrap. But, her mother wasn’t there in the room.

Kezia then saw some sheets of papers on the bed table. She collected them all, tore them into small pieces and stuffed the cushion with those pieces.

Her efforts to please her father resulted in displeasing him very much when at night her father searched for those sheets of paper on the bed table. The sheets of paper had the speech for Port Authority. Her father scolded and beat her with a ruler for touching things that did not belong to her.

Answer: Kezia decides that there are “different kinds of fathers”. Mr Macdonald was a loving father. He was very gentle and forgiving. He used to play and laugh with his children. He was friendly with them. He was quite different from Kezia’s father. Her father was very strict and unfriendly.

Answer: One day, when her mother and grandmother were at the hospital, Kezia was left at home with Alice, their cook. At night, she had a nightmare. Shivering with fear, she called for her grandmother but saw her father near her bed. He took her in his arms and carefully tucked her on his bed. He then lay down beside her. Half asleep, she went close to him, snuggled her head under his arm and held onto his shirt tightly.

She saw her father go off to sleep before her. She understood that he had to work so hard every day which made him too tired to behave like Mr Macdonald. She told her father that he had a big heart.